


Wetwork.

by BunnyJess



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Deathstroke the Terminator (Comics), Green Arrow (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics), Red Hood/Arsenal (Comics), Titans (Comics)
Genre: Blood, F/M, Gen, Gore, Graphic Description, Gun Violence, Knife Violence, Kori is a Queen, Kryptonite, M/M, Medication, Parental Abuse, Quantum Mechanics, Ra's is creepy, Rose is an Outlaw, Rose loves her family, Slade Wilson is a bad parents, Swearing, Swordfighting, Violence, as usual, even if they are annoying, fight me, he is just her father, her family does not include Slade, mental health, mentions of mind control, physical abuse mentioned, pink mist
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2020-11-23 00:24:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20883131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BunnyJess/pseuds/BunnyJess
Summary: The Outlaws are a team, a family, just like any other is the world. They just happen to do the wetwork that the other teams don't. Rescuing teammates, winding each other up, and taking out entire organisations in one afternoon are all in a days work for this group of outcasts.





	1. Jason and Rose cause havok.

**Author's Note:**

> This is written by my husband and beta read by me. It is very gory, just FYI.

“I see fifteen, two on guard and three patrolling the perimeter.” A scoff buzzed in her ear over the com and Rose rolled her eyes.

“Well that’s because you only have one eye. There’s eighteen, two on guard and four patrolling the perimeter.” Rose could remember now why she disliked working with ex-Robins. They had a knack for making you want to shoot yourself in the face. Of the two she had worked with though; Jason was at least more tolerable due to not constantly trying to make you like him. No in fact Jason had a knack for making you dislike him, even when you didn’t want to.

“Honestly I will shove my Katana up your ass if you don’t shut up.” She grunted back.

“Well bring a bottle of lube and we’ll call it a date, first though, lets liberate these fuck-tards from their lives yeah?”

Rose slinked from one shadow to the next as outlines of the guards inside the warehouse lit up as Jason highlighted them and shared them on their optical displays. “I’ll take the guards and perimeter watch; think you can clear the warehouse?” Jason flicked to where Rose was hidden and saw her flip him the bird. “Message received, good hunting.”

Jason refocused and found the first of the two guards in their respective watchtowers in his sights. The large, silenced rifle sat neatly in the crook of his elbow. Coated in quantum camo that made the rifle almost disappear from normal space to anyone who looked at it. This effect confused most people as their brains struggled to realise what they were staring at, being drawn in by the quantum effect. Jason however had the necessary damper installed in his retinal implant.

The sights of his rifle were linked to his implant so he could aim without having to look down the scope, most helpful when in a tight spot. The sight corrected for environmental factors and pulsed red, signalling the shot was good. Jason pulled the trigger and a high velocity charged round fizzed from the end of his rifle and through the chest of his target. The charged round dissipated its energy into the target, ensuring that the shot was lethal with a charge no human could withstand. The shot however was easily a kill shot and the man collapsed to the floor of his tower. Jason adjusted to the next target, waited one, then pulled the trigger once more. Owing to the rifle’s quantum property, recoil was of no concern and Jason quickly moved to find the rest of his targets.

Two of the four patrolling the perimeter had disappeared behind the building so Jason focused first on the two still visible. Luckily for him they were about to round a small cordoned area, he waited for them to square up and their heads to line up for a one shot, double kill opportunity. Once more Jason calmed his mind then pulled the trigger. Duel bursts of blood, grey matter and skull erupted into the air as the two targets fell lifelessly to the complex floor.

Jason ejected the magazine and pulled one with a green stripe around it, then inserted it into his rifle’s port. He slid the charging handle back and found the two targets on his scope behind the building. He selected their signatures and then raised his rifle into the air, then fired two shots off. The special guided rounds took a moment and then altered their paths. They arced round the building and burrowed down through their target’s skulls and into their chest. “Exterior targets down, how’re things inside?”

Rose silenced her com and headed towards her first target. The man stood with his back to her so taking him out was child’s play. She pulled her blade from its sheath, not concerned about noise as it was coated in the same quantum camo as Jason’s rifle so made no noise audible in normal space. She lunged forwards and stuck the blade through the back of the man’s head and out the front of his face. Yanking upwards the blade sild effortlessly out the top of the man’s skull and she raced past him. The next two were stood together talking about their latest sexual conquests when Rose appeared. She sent both their heads flying with one seamless slash of her blade, squirts of blood shooting up into the air and landing back on the bloody stumps of their necks.

Sounds of bodies falling was now attracting attention, and with people not answering their radio’s the other fifteen guards were getting edgy. Rose pushed off and started running. She slashed at waist level and cut clean through the next guard, not stopping for his torso to hit the floor. The next guard turned just in time to see her diagonal slash sever him from shoulder to hip. He would keep screaming until his brain ran out of blood and eventually stopped working.

Three now stood with their backs to each other in a protective triangle, but it wouldn’t save them. The first suddenly found himself impaled by her sword, the other two spun to find their target but Rose ran across their fronts, slashing their necks wide open and left them to bleed out, pulling her blade from the first torso.

A further two then rounded the corner and Rose unleashed fury upon them. She slashed up and cut the man’s rifle in two and severed one of his arms midway up his forearm. The second pulled the trigger but failed to realise Rose had jammed the barrel. The rifle exploded and fragments of gun erupted into his neck and face. The man’s ruined hands shuddered in front of him then disappeared entirely as Rose slashed them off and then cut his head in two horizontally. She pulled the sidearm from the first of the duo and put a round in each eye socket, his eyeballs erupting in his head as the explosive rounds detonated, these guys were seriously armed. The remaining eight had all collected around the item they were there to protect, one of them had crossed Rose’s path of gore and had proceeded to piss himself.

The pistol had a small clip due to the explosive rounds so Rose was determined to make them count. She crouched low and looked in the direction of her remaining eight targets. She selected which lucky fuckers would have the pleasure of dying quickly to the explosive rounds, then flung herself from the crate she was hiding behind.

Five rounds impacted dead centre on five of the guard’s heads and they bulged then turned into pink mist. The last three cowered in shock, allowing Rose the time she needed to sprint towards them. She slashed up, slicing the first target cleanly in two from ballsack to scalp. The two halves of the man fell to the floor and separated in a pile of gore as the man’s internal organs fell out onto the cold concrete.

Rose hurled her sword at the next target making sure to click the right button on the hilt as she did. The blade sunk into her target’s abdomen, not a lethal blow, but the core of the blade that was filled with plastic explosive would deal with that. The weapon burst into a ball of fire, tearing the man’s torso to shreds as fragments of blade gouged and sliced their way through his fragile body. Blood poured from the gaping hole in his stomach and multiple gashes and as his face hit the floor, the chunk of blade that had dug into his brow ploughed into his brain and finished his life. Rose pulled her second katana and rounded the box to the final guard who was stood with his hands raised in the air and all his weapons discarded on the floor before him.

“Exterior targets are down, how’re things inside?” Jason asked cheerily.

“All but one down, he’s surrendering.” Rose replied as cold as the metal of her blade.

“How nice of him.” Jason retorted. Rose heard a whizz and the man in front of her suddenly had no head. “These pricks were trying to resurrect the Joker, no one surrenders from that.” It was the first time Jason’s tone had shown anything other than playfulness all mission.

Rose walked over to the large container in the centre of the warehouse and opened it. Inside was a cryopod, stolen from Mr Freeze, only the occupant was not Nora Fries, but instead the clown prince of crime himself. “Setting micro nuclear warhead now.” Rose stated clearly over the com.

As soon as Jason’s last shot left the barrel he was sprinting towards their ride. With tech stolen and improved upon by his late boyfriend, Roy Harper, their dropship was an impressive sight; if you were ever lucky enough to see it. Covered in quantum camo with energy shielding strong enough to withstand impact with a supernova, Roy had called it his greatest creation. The ship ran off a clean and safe nuclear reactor that would never run out of energy, producing more than the ship could use with all its systems running. No vehicle had ever been so advanced, including any of the Bat vehicles (a fact that always made Jason happy). It also featured several weapons systems that could be cycled out depending on their needs. They ranged from the more traditional ballistic weapons for use against homegrown targets, but also had an array of energy and hardlight weapons for use against extra-terrestrial targets.

Jason ran up the boarding ramp and fired up the quantum field engines. They worked by pushing reality rather than propelling the ship and there was no quicker means of transportation other than teleportation. The ship rose silently and raced over to the warehouse, a small circle of light appearing in the bottom. Rose de-materialised from the warehouse floor and appeared in the loading bay of the dropship.

At thirty metres long, twenty-three meters wide, and ten metres high the loading bay could hold a small assault force in its drop bay. Just before his death Roy had converted the drop bay into a short-range teleportation platform and mobile command centre for the Outlaws. Jason wished Roy was alive to see it working, but that was exactly how he had stumbled upon their current mission. Searching for unprotected Lazarus pits, Jason had discovered actionable intel that suggested the Joker was going to be reanimated in one of the pits no longer under League protection. Jason and Rose had taken off as soon as they realised what was going to happen, leaving Artemis and Bizarro to assist the Justice League in discovering who had killed Roy.

As soon as Rose was aboard Jason punched the engines to ten percent capacity and the craft accelerated to a relative eight hundred miles an hour. Usually the G-forces generated from such acceleration would’ve killed any inhabitants, but their ship had substantial inertial dampeners. The ship could pull an eighty G turn and the crew wouldn’t even know something was happening.

“Detonation in; five, four, three, two, one.” Rose clenched her fist and a small ball of brilliant light winked into existence several hundred miles away.

“Job well done!” Jason exclaimed as Rose strode into the cockpit. Jason swivelled in his chair with his hand raised, hesitating as he saw the state of Rose. “Oh dude! You’ve got someone’s ear lobe on your shoulder!” He said, trying to hide his laughter.

Rose peered at her shoulder and, sure enough, there was a fragment of someone’s ear. “Ewww that’s rank!” She whined, swiping at the fleshy lump and knocking it to the floor.

“You’re the one who put it there! You can hardly complain.” Jason laughed as he turned to the nav console and set the destination for just outside of Gotham. “Go get changed, I’ll get a bag to put your armour in.” Jason suggested as Rose walked off back to the drop bay to get her change of clothes.


	2. Jason and Rose cause more havok

Jason and Rose were cruising over the Atlantic when the long-range communications array fizzed into life. Artemis’ face appeared but all was not as it seemed. She was heavily beaten and had a large cut on her face as well as a bloodied bandage wrapping her entire left shoulder. “Art, what the fuck happened?!” Jason exclaimed, there wasn’t much that that could injure Artemis the way she was. What was even more concerning was what could possibly have happened to Bizarro that allowed this to happen to Artemis.

“We got blindsided. They hit Biz and me at the same time. He took a blue Kryptonite bullet to the chest. He’s okay but still recovering. They attacked me with what I’m guessing was an Nth metal blade. I’ve been better but I’m out of action.” Artemis still sounded slightly winded; another thing Jason wasn’t used to hearing.

The Red Hood smashed the console, glad that it was reinforced. “Do you know who attacked you?” Rose asked over Jason’s shoulder.

“I’m afraid we do. Once we were both patched up we consulted the CCTV and…and we discovered that Talia al Ghul and,” The pause was enough of a reason for Jason and Rose to know who the second assailant was.

“Slade.” Rose growled her father’s name through gritted teeth. There was no love lost between Rose and her father. In fact, Rose would happily end the man’s life if the opportunity ever arose. Rose had been at Slade’s mercy once. She’d broken free of his mental control by accident after a slip in the shower effected a hard reset on her mind. He had held her in his holding cell for several months before finally Rose had managed to break free. During her escape attempt Slade half-heartedly tried to kill her by throwing a knife at her skul. Rose saw the blade coming and dodged, but not before the tip ripped her eyeball out of its socket.

Wounded and bleeding heavily, Slade stood over her with his blade ready for the kill when Jason and Roy burst into the room. Rose had sent a distress call out when she first escaped Slade’s control and Roy had detected it. However, Slade’s lair was so well hidden it had taken them months to find it. Jason managed to hold off Slade whilst Roy got Rose to the (still in development) dropship. With Rose safe, Jason bugged out of the fight and the three of them escaped into the night.

Due to this, Rose felt she owed Jason and Roy with her life, although their bond had become much more than that now. Jason and Roy had convinced her to join the Outlaws, which at that point was just Jason, Roy and Starfire. For years they fought together. Taking down those who desperately needed removing from life. When Kori had to return to her planet to rule, the three of them had carried on again until Artemis and Bizarro eventually joined their ranks.

As such Rose was just as determined as Jason was to return Roy to life. “If they didn’t come to kill you, what did they come to do?” She asked as Jason ramped up the accelerator. A heavy feeling settling into his stomach as he had an idea of what the Al Ghul family wanted.

“They took Roy. Jason, I’m so sorry, they took his cryopod.” Artemis looked like she had failed to protect Bana-Migdal from Circe, not just protect Roy’s cryopod. It lifted a miniscule part of the weight falling over the pair at the reminder they weren’t in this mission alone.

A fire burned in Jason’s eyes. “The fuckers did what?!” Jason swung the ship into as tight-a-turn as the ship could manage at these relative speeds. “Setting course for Nanda Parbat.” Jason stated, an almost zen-like state falling over him. A state that the rest of the Outlaws were only used to seeing in him during a firefight.

“Little one, no! It’s suicide! They’ll be expecting retaliation, you’ll never make it in.” Normally Artemis would be right, but not when Roy was at risk.

“No, they won’t be expecting this.” Jason cut the com and fed more power to the engines. “Arrival at Nanda Parbat in three minutes. Get ready Rose. Make sure my guns are loaded and put an extra six mags of shredder rounds on my ammo loader.” Rose tapped him on the shoulder and ran off to complete their mission prep. No words needing to be spoken between them. When they’d been working with a ship capable of these speeds for as long as they had, quick mission prep had become part of their working life.

A few minutes later the large craft dropped silently behind an outcropping of rock, not that anyone could see the ship anyway. Rose and Jason ran down the ramp and into the late afternoon haze. Their suit’s cooling systems kicking in instantly and adjusting their temperature to maintain an effective body temperature. They sprinted across the desert dunes and the soon enough the outer wall of Nanda Parbat came into view.

Rose and Jason dropped to the floor and both shouldered their rifles. They scanned the wall, using every available detection mode their scopes had to find all the perimeter guards. “Eight on the wall and six inside a prep room for rapid response.” Rose announced.

“Confirmed. Smart link the ones on the wall and I’ll take the response team.” Rose bumped his foot with hers, signalling that she accepted his order but was too busy concentrating to speak.

Rose slapped in a mag of smart rounds and selected her targets. “Smart link confirmed, ready on you.”

Jason slid a black lined magazine into his rifle. “Vacuum rounds ready, target acquired.” He took one last calming breath in. “Strike.”

Rose pulled on her trigger eight times and watched the bullets track on her implant. Eight silent and rapid rounds bored into the skulls of every wall guard, creating clean holes through their heads as human debris scattered the wall’s walkway. Meanwhile, Jason’s slowed round finally penetrated the exterior wall of the ready room. The six men dressed in sandy coloured ninja robes clamoured in surprise as the round seemed to stop in the middle of the room. Confusion filled their last moments as a bubble formed around the inner surface of the room and then the round sucked all the air out of the bubble and stored inside a quantum field. The six men fell to the ground, suffocating in the vacuum. Their eyes bulged and they bled from all their orifices. “Wall guards down, move in.” Jason said softly.

Dropping her rifle, Rose ran for the wall with Jason only a few steps behind her as he clicked the button on the rifles barrel which separated the gun into its two pistol components. The two pistols were larger than most would consider viable for a one-handed weapon, but Jason had trained exclusively with them and the lack of recoil meant the weight of the guns wasn’t really of any concern. He threw one of the weapons ahead of him, then with his free hand, slapped in a mag of shredder rounds. The second pistol fell perfectly, and he collected it repeating the process to fully load his weapons. As they approached the wall, Jason and Rose fired their hooks and they lodged into the towering wall. The scaling devices used micro gravitic generators rather than rope to pull their user up or let them swing from buildings without the risk of their lines being cut.

Rose and Jason pounced over the wall and looked at the splendour of Nanda Parbat. Its inhabitants could never want for anything as everything was provided to keep the foot soldiers of the League of Assassins happy. That wouldn’t help them now.

Activating the tracking beacon on Roy’s cryopod, Jason let himself fully enter a zen no-thought state. The beacon would almost definitely alert the League to their presence, but without it they could search for days in this hidden city and never find him. A small blinking orange light glowed on the side of Roy’s cryopod as ninja carried it out of the large transport helicopter on the landing pad near Ra’s’ palace. The signal appeared on their implants and Jason enhanced the zoom on his helmet’s HUD. “I’ve got a visual on Roy, Talia, and Slade.” He said as a loud siren cut through the previous peaceful murmur of the city.

“Now the challenge begins. Whole city’s gonna be looking for us. How’d you wanna play this?” Jason asked, pulling a single shot grenade launcher from his belt and firing it off into the middle of the city as a misdirection. The grenade flew quickly and uninterrupted, landing in the middle of a courtyard. The grenade erupted at the feet of three ninja as they confirmed search routes. The three ninjas disappeared into a cloud of pink mist. As expected, the explosion drew the attention of the city and bodies swarmed to the location.

“Let’s split up, pincer around the city and make our way to the palace. They’ll take Roy straight down to the pit now that they know we’ve come for him. One condition though, if you find my father don’t kill him. He’s mine.” Fiery hatred burning brighter than any Red Lantern from the small woman.

Jason nodded and then sprinted off down a passage to his left, disappearing into the dark tunnel. Rose ran straight for the edge and launched herself over the wall and plummeted for the floor. She drew her sword and jammed it into the sandstone, slowing her decent but capturing the attention of the foot soldiers below. She released her sword from the wall and let the freefall take her. Landing on top of the first soldier she crushed him under her weight, letting her sword burrow into the skull of the second.

Rolling out of the landing she pulled her sword and sliced through the knees of the third person. They fell to the floor and landed in a pool of their own blood as Rose raised her foot and stomped fiercely down on their head. It caved in and grey matter oozed out of their nose and eyes. She pushed off, further crushing the soldier’s head, and sprinted into the city.

Rose’s route brought her across surprisingly few ninjas and those that she did encounter, met their ends rapidly. Three lost their heads to Rose’s blade. Another took an exploding shuriken to the mouth, and one simply had their face skewered. She closed in on the palace and noticed that the two entrance guards lay in tatters; Jason had beaten her here.

She was about to enter the palace when she heard a loud thud behind her. She turned, blade above her head ready to strike, and saw her father still crouched in the courtyard behind her. He had clearly leapt from one of the many windows above as he was surrounded by a fine dusting of glass fragments.

“So, you finally come home to Daddy. You could’ve at least called first.” Slade was clearly confident. He was sure of himself and knew there were very few people in the world that could match his martial skill. He did not include Rose in that list, which was his first mistake. Rose had trained hard since escaping him. Jason had taught her in the ways of the All Caste while Artemis trained her as if she was one of her sisters. Her skill level was now rivalled by few.

“Fuck you Slade. You’ve tried to take everything from me since the moment you knew of my existence. That ends today, along with your sad excuse for a life.”

Slade chuckled and stood up confidently. “Little girl there’s nothing you can do that will scare me so just throw yourself on your sword now. The result will be the same.” Rose slashed the air and changed to a lower guard, welcoming Slade to attack, but the man was wiser than that and she knew he would never strike first without the element of surprise. 

Deciding to change tact, she charged and feigned an attack to Slade’s torso. He moved to block but Rose fell and slid across the floor. She passed under his blade as he tried to adjust and slashed at his thigh. Anyone else and they would now be nursing a bloody stump, but Slade’s armour was no normal armour. Instead all Rose accomplished was a long gash across his thigh, but this was an acceptable outcome. “You petulant girl.” He cursed and swung for her. Rose coiled back, avoiding his blow but losing a sizable chunk of hair to his attack. She scrabbled to regain her footing and brought her blade up just in time to block his next attack. Slade raised his foot and kicked his blade, forcing Rose back to the floor. He jabbed at Rose’s shoulder, narrowly missing as she rolled away. When Rose righted herself, she hurled a shuriken which dug into Slade’s mask. He reached to pull the star out and clenched his hand around it just as it exploded.

Slade’s glove and mask disintegrated, leaving his pale skin slightly singed. “You will pay for that!” He bellowed and launched into a furious flurry of strikes. Rose countered left, and high. She jumped over a low swipe but left herself open to his trailing foot and he kicked her across the courtyard and into a solid wall. She impacted the wall with such force it cratered around her. Falling to the floor, a river of blood ran from the back of her skull. She had certainly fractured it but she needed to focus or she would die.

“All the time in the world to train to finally beat me and you still failed.” Slade slowly walked towards her, preparing for his final strike. “I don’t know what’s more of a disappointment; that you betrayed me, or that your betrayal failed to end me.” He was now just a few strides away, Rose fought to bring her arm up, but a pang of agony ran through her shoulder and she realised her shoulder was dislocated.

Her com crackled into life as she fell to the floor, unable to support her weight anymore but desperate to keep conscious. “Head’s up Princess.” A familiar voice pulled her that bit further away from unconsciousness. She looked up and saw the outline of one of Jason’s pistols falling towards her. She lifted her hand ready to grab it.

“Begging won’t save you girl. Your time on this earth is over.” Slade held his sword in both hands and lifted it above his head as Rose’s hand seemed to grab something and point at his face.

“Up yours Slade.” She pulled the trigger and watched as the shredder round cut a thousand tracks through Slade’s face, ripping his head into ribbons of satisfying gore. The remaining fragments of Slade’s head splatted onto the cobblestone below, followed swiftly by his limp body.

Rose heard the tell-tale whump of rotor blades and sure enough the helicopter Roy had been transported in on was lowering itself into the courtyard, crushing the fountain in the middle. Jason ran out of the craft and pulled Rose to safety. “Let’s get out of here.”

~~~

Jason sprinted through the tunnel and activated his night vision. He forced his legs to work harder than they ever had before, to push him quicker than he’d ever run before. They would not take Roy without a fight. There was no way in hell that he would he let them use his boyfriend like they’d tried to use him. Soon Jason noticed a small group of ninjas fighting to loosen a mechanism that would seal off the passageway. Jason brought up his pistols and fired a salvo of shredder rounds. In this confined environment, and at the range Jason still was, the rounds cut through every inch of the ninja, lacerating them from head to toe. One of them caught the full force of three rounds and erupted into tiny fragments of bone, flesh and blood. His compatriots were coated in his remains as their own lives were brought to an agonising end. Jason ran past them, leaving the last ebbs of life to leak from their mortal bodies.

When Jason emerged from the tunnel he found himself in the courtyard that lead into the palace. It was clearly an escape route, or fast reaction route. Two guards stood at the entrance and they met a similarly gory end to the ninja within the tunnel. Their chests mashing into a bloody mess. They fell clutching at their ruined bodies as Jason crashed through the door, crushing the head of a guard stood behind the door with the massive weight of it.

He sprinted for a large spiral staircase that he remembered led to the roof and climbed three steps at a time. Jason holstered his pistols and pulled out his Kris. Ionically the very same one Talia had given him.

As he soared up the stairs, Talia emerged from a doorway. Refusing to stop, knowing Ra’s would be with Roy’s pod, he jammed the small but deadly blade up through Talia’s jaw and allowed the edge to cut through as his momentum pulled the knife out of the side of her face. Her lifeless body fell to the steps below it and tumbled lazily downwards.

Body moving faster than ever, Jason eventually reached the top of the tower. Sure enough, there stood Ra’s with his top off and blade drawn. Ever the egotistical prick.

Roy’s pod was behind him and being protected by six ninjas, Jason guessed they were Ra’s personal guard. “Saw Talia on the way up. Didn’t stop to say hello but made sure she wouldn’t be following me.” Jason taunted with a shrug. His electronic voice distortion adding even more insult to his words.

“Your first mistake was coming here. Your second was thinking you could succeed, and your third was killing my daughter. The detective was a fool for ever taking you on, it’s the only reason my daughter ever pitied you after all.” He launched at Jason, who immediately summoned his All blades. Ra’s had enough evil magic coursing through his veins that it was no problem for Jason to summon the blades linked to his soul.

He countered the blow and pushed him back. Discretely pulling a grenade from his belt and releasing the pin. Ra’s attacked again. This time Jason rolled under his attack, slashing the old dictator’s leg across his thigh. As he did, Jason released the grenade with just enough time for it to roll near to the ninjas and pepper them with destructive fragments.

Jason knew the pod would be safe as the thing could survive a damn building falling on it. The ninjas all collapsed to the floor in various states of injury. Three even ending up dead; which made Jason’s job much easier. Ra’s was now furious at the death caused by what he deemed to be a failure of his swung wildly at Jason. His blade clanged harmlessly into the side of Jason’s helmet. It knocked Jason off balance, but he used the momentum and swung up at Ra’s. Their blades collided. Ra’s’ had been cracked in the impact with Jason’s helmet. The sword shattering as Jason’s carried on slicing across the bare chest and catching the cultist’s chin.

The leader of the League of Assassins fell to the floor, his green tinged blood flowing freely. “Insolent child. You do not deserve this victory. Nothing you have ever achieved gives you the right to end me.”

Jason chuckled loudly, his distorted voice ringing around the domed roof above them. “What makes you think I give a shit old man?” Ra’s began to answer but Jason had heard enough. He lunged forwards and plunged his blade into the man’s forehead. Jaw hanging uselessly it was only Jason’s blade that kept his head up. Jason pulled back and allowed the body to flop to the floor. He pulled another grenade from his belt, pulled the pin and shoved the cylinder into the gaping mouth; shattering a few teeth as he did. Standing up he decided to beat a hasty retreat, walking quickly over to the helicopter, while pulling his pistol from its holster as the grenade detonated behind him removing the possibility of Ra’s being resurrected. The three remaining ninjas were attempting to rise to meet him, but Jason put a shredder round into the chest of each one of them. Three wet smacks coincided with their husks falling back onto the floor of the helipad.

After leaping into the helicopter Jason felt like he discovered the first bit of good news all day, Roy’s cryopod was still linked to the loading arm of the craft. He pressed the necessary button and watched as the arm hauled the pod back inside through the loading door. As it secured itself on the binding points, Jason’s audio sensors detected the unmistakable sounds of sword fighting from below. He ran over to the edge and zoomed in; just in time to see Rose get hurled across the courtyard. He held his pistol over the edge and dropped it. “Head’s up Princess.” He called as the weapon fell perfectly towards her.

Jason ran back to the helicopter and jumped into the pilot’s seat. He carefully lifted the craft off the pad, over the edge of the building and down to the courtyard. As he looked through the clear glass floor, he saw Slade’s body collapse to the floor. It looked like it was missing a head too.

Once Rose was on board they headed out of the city and back to their dropship. Jason unpacked the cryopod and Rose collected a gravity lifter from their ship. She selected the cryopod, watched as the half tonne pod rose effortlessly from the floor and walked it to the back of their ship. Once in place she let the pod go and allowed the gravity net to hold the pod safely under the tail of the dropship.

Jason and Rose took their seats in the cockpit and Jason took them up into the early night sky. Rose activated the com array and connected to Artemis and Bizarro. “Oh, thank the Goddess!” Artemis exclaimed as two fifths of her team appeared before her.

“Mission successful Art. We got Roy back!” Jason stated excitedly. “Have you guys managed to locate a suitable pit yet?” Whilst there were numerous pits across the globe, only certain ones held enough power to bring someone back to life.

“We have actually, and it’s here in the US. Swing by to pick us up and we’ll all head out together.” Jason locked in their headquarters and ramped up the engines to twenty percent. Soon Roy would be back with them and everything would be right again.


	3. Jay and Rose fix a mistake.

Roy’s cold, motionless, naked body lay on the metal lattice, hovering a little over a metre from the eerie green pool that illuminated the entire cavern with its magical aura. “Okay, Biz, Art, are you ready?” Jason called out and they both gave the thumbs up. “Alright Rose, lower Roy in now.”

A second passed and then the platform lowered and slowly entered the mystical pool. Roy’s body attempted to float but the pit dragged him in, eager to have its fill. They all stood waiting, poised and ready to pounce. Jason could just about remember when he emerged from the pit, but only if he entered a state of Zen No Thought meditation. The blinding and animalistic rage he felt at being ripped from the afterlife was pure and all-consuming. He knew how to handle it however, what should’ve been done to help him.

Bubbles floated to the calm surface and then an instant later Roy burst through the thick neon waters screaming for his life. “NOW BIZ!” Jason screamed.

Bizarro was feeling well enough to join them for this mission as it was so special. He rushed forwards with his super speed and wrapped his arms tight around Roy’s abdomen, locking his arms to his sides. Bizarro then wrapped his legs around Roy’s and flew them both to the other side of the cavern where Artemis was stood ready to pounce. “HURRY RED HER. RED HAIR WILL INJURE HIM IF HIM NOT CAREFULL!”

Artemis threw herself at Roy’s exposed ass and stabbed a large syringe into the sizable muscle group, depressing the plunger as soon as she was sure the needle was in. The syringe contained a high dose depot of Clozapine and Haloperidol. The Haloperidol would calm Roy’s mind and hopefully knock him out. Whereas the Clozapine was a strong antipsychotic medication, Jason hoped it would aid Roy’s fight against the pit madness.

After a few more moments of thrashing, Roy eventually started to calm and then fell asleep. “Red hair is sleep now.” Biz confirmed and lay the ginger arched down on the cold rock floor. Blood and pit oozed from his arm where his crazed struggle to get free had resulted in a compound fracture to his humerus.

“Art, try and stick that back in.” Jason said gesturing to Roy’s arm. “Rose, you can bring the platform back up. Roy is back, but he’s out-cold. I was right about the pit rage though!” Jason hadn’t been entirely sure his medication regime would work but was glad that it had.

“Copy that, see you all topside.” She said as light plunged in through the top opening of the cavern as Rose moved the dropship away from the aperture.

Artemis placed a comforting hand on Jason’s shoulder. “Come on little one, let’s get back to the ship and fix Roy up. His journey is far from over.”

They took the trip back to the states at a more sedate pace than was possible in their ship, now christened _The Arsenal_ in honour of its creator. Instead they chose to travel at a speed more akin to civilian transports. The dropbay and control centre had been swapped out for a vast array of medical equipment which included; a small surgical bed, a sterile field generator, surgical tools, machines to detect observations, an EKG and a mobile MRI and CT scanners. All of them had been used to asses Roy’s medical condition, hence the slower speeds as they wanted time to sort anything out before they reached Star City.

Jason knew Roy’s relationship with Ollie hadn’t been the best at times, but just before his death they had really been trying to make it work. Plus, Jason had seen Ollie at Roy’s funeral. The man had been a state. He spent three weeks after Roy’s death holed up in his penthouse refusing to eat or come out.

With an hour and a half left until they hit the city limits of Star City, Roy started to wake up. “Whaaa.” He mumbled along with a string of incoherent babble.

They all stood around him and watched. Hoping the meds would allow Roy to at least function at a lower level. “Roy baby, you there?” Jason asked tentatively.

For a full thirty seconds, nothing happened, but then Roy slowly tried to sit up and then fell back to the table when he tried to put weight through his arm. “Hold up Gorgeous. You broke your arm earlier, pretty badly so you need to not put any weight on it.”

Roy winced in agony, but he wasn’t trying to murder any of them which was good. “You don’t have to tell me! It fucking kills!” Roy sat up slowly with Jason’s assistance and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He looked up and was met with a sea of wide, beaming smiles from his team. “Hey guys, how you doing?” He said casually as if he hadn’t just been brought back from the dead. “Dude, honestly you can’t make dead jokes anymore. They’re mine now. I died last, so I get the dead jokes now!”

Jason beamed and leaned in to kiss Roy, feeling the familiar softness of his plush lips pressing against his. “Fuck I missed that.” He whispered as their lips parted.

“I love you Jaybird.” He said wiping a tear from his Gothamite’s eye.

“I love you too you stupid fool, honestly who gets killed by the Condiment King?!” Roy rubbed the back of his head. A residual twinge from where his skull had cracked when he slipped on relish, causing skull fragments to shred through his brain.

Suddenly the autopilot’s voice burst from the speakers. “Arrival at Star City in one hour and fifteen minutes.”

Roy looked straight at Jason. “We’re going to Star city?” He questioned.

“Yeah man. I know you and Ollie were doing better and honestly, he was fucked up when you died. Didn’t eat or appear for three weeks.”

Roy’s head hung, then a startling realisation came to him. “Wait, how long have I been dead for Jaybird?”

Jason scratched the back of his head. “Just over a year.” He said sheepishly, ashamed of how long it had taken to get Roy’s body into a pit. “Ra’s put up a big fight to protect the pits, then we struggled to convince Ollie to hand you over to us, and then the Joke…”

Roy pressed a finger to the Latinx’s lips and brushed the white hair dangling over his eyes, out of his face. “All that matters, is that you did it baby. Now can someone get me some clothes? It’s freezing in here!”

As soon as they knew Roy was okay, they gunned the engines and arrived in Star City in mere moments. Rose swung the ship between the skyscrapers and landed it gracefully on the Queen helipad, thankfully there were two spaces as Ollie’s daytime ride was parked in the space closest to the penthouse.

Although the Arsenal couldn’t be seen, the weight sensors in the pad were able to detect the ships presence and alerted the occupants of the penthouse that they had guests. Ollie and Dinah arrived promptly with weapons discreetly hidden behind their backs. “Relax Ollie, it’s just us.” Jason called out as he walked casually down the ramp and onto the large green pad.

“Oh Jason, you should’ve called!” A smile broadened across Ollie and Dinah’s faces as the mogul greeted him.

Both of them had known Jason in his Robin days and then come to love him as Roy’s partner. They had shared their grief with him when Roy had senselessly died. Then fought with him for a time when he initially suggested resurrecting Roy. Dinah sidled up to Jason and wrapped her lethal arms around him. “How are you honey?” She asked, her Gotham accent always trickling out when she spoke with him.

“I’m alright, but I’m afraid I haven’t come here on a social call.” Dinah stood back and re-joined Ollie. “I brought a surprise for you.” Jason took a step to the side and revealed Roy, stood at the bottom of the ramp, looking incredulous as always.

“My boy.” Ollie whispered almost silently and sprinted across the platform. He wrapped his arms around Roy and squeezed him tighter than Roy could ever have expected. “Is it you, is it really you?” He asked into Roy’s shoulder. Afraid that if he let go Roy would disappear again.

“It’s me dad, it’s me.” Roy wrapped his arms around Ollie as best he could, and the two men stood for what felt like an eternity to them.

Dinah pulled Jason into a hug almost as tight as the one Ollie was giving Roy. “Thank you, Jason. I didn’t believe you could do it when you said it but now. Seeing him alive it just…thank you.”

The Red Hood choked back his tears and pushed Dinah off him. “Go see him, he’s as much your son as he is Ollie’s.” She smiled gratefully then ran off to Roy too. Ollie pulled her in and the three of them almost collapsed when Ollie’s legs gave way and the pure mixture of emotions shut his brain down. Artemis appeared, scooped the protector of Star City up in a single movement, and carried him inside followed quickly by Dinah and Roy.

“We’ll give you and those two the evening.” Jason said as Roy passed him, causing a look of utter confusion on the man’s face.

“What? I’m sure they won’t mind if…”

Jason cut him off. “No, I know I wouldn’t be stepping on any toes, but there’s a fairly important phone call I need to make to my dad. I kinda killed Ra’s, Talia and Slade in my quest to get you back. He should know ‘bout that.”

Roy nodded knowingly, he was aware the Talia was an ex-love of Bruce’s and mother to his hellbrat of a son. “Okay Jaybird, I’ll give you a bell when I’m ready for a pickup.” Roy leant over and kissed Jason softly.

“Don’t rush it, we’ve got all the time we want.” Jason turned and walked back to the Arsenal for what would likely be one of the world’s most difficult discussions ever.


	4. Jason and Rose find a new family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WE'll be bak to the blood and gore soon enough. This was just a chapter I begged my husband to write as he couldn't just leave me hanging with the mentions of a potentially disaterous phone call!

“Ollie, where’s your phone?” Roy said as he joined his adoptive father and mother in their penthouse apartment’s luxurious lounge.

“Errr, just on the table, why?” Roy darted over to the table, his locks of messy ginger hair flopping around. He still hadn’t readjusted to his body yet. “Roy what’s going on? I thought we were going to spend some time catching up?”

Dinah had her arm wrapped around Ollie’s waist as they both looked on in confusion. “Jay’s about to call his dad, tell him that Ra’s, Talia and Slade are all dead.”

Their jaws dropped almost to the floor at the shock of the news. “They’re what?!” Ollie exclaimed, closing the distance to Roy who had already hacked into Ollie’s phone and was doing some technical wizardry on it.

“They stole my corpse, were going to reanimate me and try and use me like they tried to use Jay when he died. Jay and Rose followed them back and rescued me, but it meant killing them to complete the mission.”

Ollie looked to Dinah, who hadn’t always seen the world as quite as black-and-white as some of the other supers did. She shrugged and gestured to Roy who now stood before them, alive and well, because of Jason and Rose’s actions. Ollie found himself realising that he didn’t care even the slightest bit that three of the worst people in the world were now dead. “Okay that’s fine, but what does it have to do with my phone?” Ollie asked turning back to face Roy.

“I’m going to hack the phone call so I can hear what Bruce is saying.” Not a moment after he finished talking, did the speaker splutter into life and the familiar dull tones of Bruce Wayne’s voice filled the room.

“Just spit it out Jason. I haven’t got all evening; I’m currently dealing with a resurgent Two-Face and don’t have time for this.” Roy held his finger to his lips and pointed to his ear, so they all listened in intent silence.

“Fuck, this is so much harder than I thought it would be!” Jason sighed heavily, trying to find the words to best describe the actions he took. “Me and Rose had to raid Nanda Parbat. In the process; Slade, Talia and Ra’s were all killed.”

Ollie shrugged, accepting Jason’s news, but Bruce’s reaction was anything even remotely resembling calm. “WHAT?! Jason, how could you? We don’t KILL!” Roy had expected Bruce’s ignorance, unwilling to deviate even momentarily from his moral compass.

“Yeah well I do and the world’s a much better fucking place without those three shitheads in it anymore!” Roy stifled a laugh. Jason was one of the most eloquent people he knew, but when he was pissed off his Gotham street attitude shone through, and he swore like a trooper.

“I don’t CARE, Jason. How could you! Did you even stop to think about Damian, that’s his mother you’ve murdered!”

“The little brat hates her! He doesn’t even call her ‘mother’ anymore.” Jason’s voice changed; the anger now tinged with unmistakeable sadness. “Bruce, they had Roy and were going to try and turn him after they resurrected him in the pit. You know like they did to do to me.”

Bruce sighed heavily; nothing would ever change his mind. “Murder is _never_ an appropriate response. Have I taught you nothing?” Roy glanced at Ollie again who was visibly red and breathing heavily. “Jason, do me a favour and never step foot in Gotham again, you can’t be trusted. I won’t have a murderer walking around like he’s a hero in _my_ city.”

Roy saw something in Ollie snap. A rage he’d seen only once before burned deep in his eyes and seemed to flow out of him. “Oh, pull your head out of your ass Bruce!” Ollie screamed at the phone. “He brought my son back to me! Alive and in a sound mind! I’d let them kill all the supervillains in the world if it meant just one more minute with Roy. Look at the bigger picture for once in your GOD-FORSAKEN life, and just see the good your son has done.”

There was quiet for a moment as the involved parties figured out what was going on. “Ollie you’re too close to the situation, you can’t just…”

Ollie was pouring with rage now, to the point that he’d snatched the phone from Roy and was pacing furiously around the coffee table. “No, just shut up Bruce. Jason, I know it’s not your home city, but you’re welcome in Star City twenty-four-seven, three hundred and sixty-five days a year! End the call and come inside. I’m cracking open the champagne. Bruce, I’ll see you at the next league reunion.” With that Ollie passed the phone back to Roy who closed the link whilst Ollie stormed out onto the helipad once more. The Arsenal had taken off and had made it past the lower end of the city, but with the glasses Roy had provided that could detect the ship, he could see it arcing around and returning to their building.

As soon as the ship landed and the ramp lowered, Ollie strode over to the bottom and waited for Jason, Rose, Artemis and Bizzaro to appear. “Come on in, I won’t let that narrow-minded fool make you feel bad for giving me the greatest gift known to mankind!”

Dinah had nipped over to the wine racks and had returned with a large bottle of very expensive looking champagne and a glass for each of them. They all took one as Ollie popped the cork and poured the bubbling liquid into the flutes. “Here’s to having my family back together, and here’s to the HEROES that brought my boy back to me. May you continue to do the work so many others are resistant to carry out.” They all reached their glasses forward and the merry sound of glasses clinking rang through the room. Jason noted that it wasn’t as nice as some of the champagne Bruce had access to, but was far better than anything he had on the ship or back at base.

The Outlaws all finished their glasses and placed them delicately down on the table. “Steady on guys, you look like you’re angling to leave again.” Dinah joked but the look they shared spoke volumes for her statement’s reality.

“Oh, come on guys, I thought we were celebrating?” Roy said gesturing wildly with his glass of Pepsi, he had been insistent on having a bubbly drink with the others and who were they to say no.

“As much as we’d love to stay, we’ve now got to go and clear our stuff out of our Gotham base, there’s too much valuable tech there to just leave it lying around.” Artemis was right, a lot of their gear had been stored in their Gotham headquarters as it was where they spent most of their time and now that they’d had their membership revoked, it was time to collect it all.

“Okay, I get it, there’s a lot you lot need to shift. Just don’t be too long, I expect to be picked up tomorrow!” Roy knew they were never going to be away longer than required, especially after all the effort they’d gone to to get him back. He just had to make sure they all knew that he wanted them around him.

Jason walked over to him and wrapped his strong arms around the reborn archer and squeezed him tighter than Roy could remember being squeezed, even when Waylon threatened him after he fell off the wagon one time. “Don’t you worry that pretty mind of yours. We’ll pick you up around eleven tomorrow. Gotta get the lair ready for your grand return ain’t we?”

Roy beamed up at his dark skinned boyfriend, locking eyes with him almost daring him to kiss him. A dare which Jason took up. He pressed is rough lips to Roy’s perfectly soft ones, a side effect of the pit, and smiled at the familiar sensation. “Good.” Roy stated as they parted, “because I was going to turn off all your quantum tech if you didn’t!” Jason didn’t doubt he could do it remotely, he was just glad Roy was the only one who knew how to! “Alright then, you losers get out of here and I’ll see you again in the morning.” Roy’s hand trailed down Jason’s lingering muscular arm as he followed the rest of his team back out to the pad.

“I’ll just go see them off.” Ollie said, mostly to Dinah, but also to Roy and he jogged slowly after them. Catching up to Jason just as he passed through the large glass doors. “Hey Jason, I really did mean it when I said you guys are welcome here anytime. I hung up my quiver after Roy and I know I won’t be picking it back up other than for get togethers with the old gang. Especially now that Dinah and I are together properly.”

Giving him a warm smile, Jason looked out at his rag-tag bunch of assorted anti-heroes. He couldn’t have asked for a better group of friends and teammates, although he would never say no to Kori re-joining them. She was busy ruling her world though. “Thank’s Ollie, it means a lot to all of us. We’ll certainly be paying Star a lot more trips than before, if only for you and Roy to see each other.”

Ollie patted Jason’s shoulder happily. He had always thought Jason was the Robin he got on with best, even if he had been a tad annoying before he was murdered. Especially as he was the first Robin to wear proper trousers, Ollie had always just felt cold every time he looked at Dick. “Well we’ll be happy to have you all, honestly. Have a safe trip, and look out for Batsy. He’ll be probably place patrol on your place.”

Nodding and rolling his eyes, Jason put his first foot on the ramp. “You don’t have to warm me about how psycho that dude is. See you later Ollie.” With that he walked confidently up the ramp and into the belly of the large craft.

Its engines silently powered on and then relatively hurtled the Arsenal into the distance. Ollie continued to follow it with his gaze for a moment. Then walked back inside as the cold evening breeze started to chill him down to the bone.

On board the Arsenal, Jason sat in the co-pilot’s seat as Rose guided them towards their destination. Biz and Artemis stood in the doorway to the main compartment and looked in on the other two. “So, no more Gotham.” Artemis said after Jason’s head had rocked back against the headrest in exasperation.

“He can’t just _ban_ us from a city. Besides if he thinks he can stop us then he’s just plain wrong.” Rose added, unwilling to submit to Bruce’s rule for it reminded her too much of the way Slade had once tried to control her.

“Red him not go home anymore? Bizzaro thinks it not fair. Batman no understand family.” Jason looked at his team and knew that if he ordered them to follow him into battle with the Bats of Gotham, then they would without hesitation. That wasn’t what he wanted though, he just wanted Roy. Now that Roy was back, he didn’t care where he had to call home because if he was with Roy and the others, he was home.

A few hours later they arrived in Gotham and dropped the Arsenal down into their main lair. Glad to see that the Quantum camo had remained intact even after the attack. The job of collecting all their gear and loading it onto the Arsenal took longer than Jason would’ve liked, but it got done and soon they could leave Gotham behind and never look back.

If Bruce wanted him out of Gotham, then fine. Jason would stay out of Gotham, but if he ever tried to call Jason in when the shit hit the fan, well he could forget about it. Jason had always made his standpoint clear. There was scum in the world and they were going to stamp it out, making sure that they could never harm anyone again.

Bruce was never going to be on board with it, but Jason’s mind was clear. He knew that the Outlaws could always find a new base. Their ship could be a temporary one until they found somewhere. The Arsenal hovered just above the building and Artemis dangled Jason by his ankles, allowing him to touch a device to the surface of the building. It would cancel out the camo and bring the building fully back into this stream of reality.

“Are you finished Little one?” Artemis called down to him, but she received no reply as Jason was concentrating. This was much more Roy’s area of expertise, but Jason understood the concept and the machine well enough to carry out the procedure. It just might take a few minutes longer than it would for Roy.

Eventually he pressed the enter button and a sinking feeling washed over him as the camo withdrew back into the little box he held. The building now gave his mind a confusing signal, like it had always been there but hadn’t at the same time. Jason tapped Artemis’ hand and she pulled him up, she gave him a small amount of thrust and he back flipped onto the ramp neatly. Beaming up at his old friend, he took one last look at the city. “Right then, let’s get going shall we!”


	5. Jay, Roy, and Rose fuck Lex over.

The lab Lex kept all of his kryptonite in was extremely well guarded. A remote facility that to the untrained eye, looked nothing more than a pokey old dirt oval track with a small pavilion on the far side. However this facility was much more than met the eye. The two assault drones hovering silently just beyond the treeline, a hundred metres from the pavilion provided over watch, ready to rain 30mm hellfire on any target that they deemed to pose a threat.Inside the pavilion was a six man team of some of the best private guards Lex’s substantial money could buy, armed with highly advanced assault rifles and an assortment of grenades. Most people wouldn’t dream of a daylight assault on a facility such as this, but the Outlaws were desperate, and they knew that only Lex and his vast stores of kryptonite held the solution.

After the attack on their base before they retrieved Roy’s cryopod, Bizarro had begun to very slowly degrade. His genetic structure not strong enough to be exposed to that much blue kryptonite. Roy had formulated that as blue kryptonite had damaged Biz, that maybe the standard green might be able to reverse some of the effects.

Either way they figured it was worth a shot, and also gave them the opportunity to remove future potential headaches for big blue. Artemis dropped the Arsenal silently over the facility, not showing on any scans or readouts, and fired two hypersonic missiles at the sentry drones. As with most of the Outlaw’s tech, Roy had designed these rockets with quantum tech and they flew silently towards their unsuspecting targets, the explosions however would not be so quiet and they had to act quickly.

Roy, Jason and Rose dropped the remaining two metres to the dirt surface below them and sprinted at full pace towards the pavilion as Artemis sent their transport hurtling back up into the skies above. One guard stood watch on top of the rickety structure, which was clearly more structurally sound than it gave on given the guard’s confidence in walking back and forth. Roy pulled an arrow from his quiver and, whilst still at a full sprint, loosed the projectile. The arrow travelled true and plunged its way through the guard’s helmet and skull, puncturing the other side as well leaving an almost comical image of the head and tail sticking out either side. The man’s body slowly shut down and he dropped steadily to his knees and then collapsed to the floor.

“They’ll have heard that so be ready.” Jason called out over their coms and sure enough, when they burst through the doors of pavilion the remaining five guards were checking their weapons.

Jason entered first and ran at two guards stood opposite him. He jammed his pistols large barrels into their throats, angling them up towards the ceiling, his remaining momentum lifting the guards off of their feet. Jason pulled the triggers on his pistols and the skulls of the paid henchmen exploded into shattered skull fragments, brain matter, flesh and sinew. Jason even felt an eyeball splat gently against his helmet.

On the other side of the room Rose was having similar luck. She was faced by another two, mortified guards, who were woefully underprepared for an assault of this calibre. She took one fell swoop of her blade and cut horizontally through both of them. The severity of the catastrophic damage she’d just inflicted on them took a moment to register, both of them looking uneasy and confused. Then the blood poured and their abdomens ruptured with the weight of their internal organs all racing to fall out of the newly opened canyons.

Their insides collected in a pool of blood at her feet as they desperately tried to hold their stomachs shut and stop any more from falling out, collapsing to their knees as they did so. Rose swung again, this time at their heads, her impossibly sharp blade slicing effortlessly through helmet and skull. The severed sections of their heads and helmets popped off with her swing and fell to the floor, exposing a clean cross-section of their brain, eyeballs and the inside of their helmets. Finally dead, their bodies thwacked into the gory mess that lay before them and the pools of blood slowly seeping across the floor.

Roy had the easier job of just having to take out one target, but given that he’d taken out the roof guard he considered himself even with the other two. He held up his wrist, aiming his close-combat bolt-gun at his target, a small red dot appearing on the man’s chest. Roy pressed the small button on the exposed face of his index finger and the small bolt launched from his wrist and sunk its tip into the guard’s sternum.

On its own the bolt would not have been enough to kill anyone, cause some pain and annoyance yes, but not kill unless it hit a critical location. These bolts however, were not regular bolts. They were, as pretty much everything else was, quantum tech arrows that Roy liked to call ‘Void bolts’. A moment or two after they struck their target the unstable quantum camo Roy applied to them became so volatile that they created an unstable quantum field. Without a power supply, the field cannot maintain itself and when it collapses, all the matter contained within the field would be sucked into quantum space, never to be seen again. Sure enough, a small sphere of the blackest-black swallowed the man’s entire abdomen and then, when the field collapsed it took with it everything within the field. His head fell down and smacked into the wet stump that was his waist.

Roy looked around the room, checking for any guards their scans hadn’t detected and could see that there was no one else. “Jeez, our intel said Lex was paying top money for these idiots.” Jason jested. “If I’d known they were this soft, I might not have killed them all.” Roy chuckled softly as Rose swung her blade to clear it of any blood. “Right, let’s head down to the main complex and relieve Lexy boy of his kryptonite.”

Roy jogged over to a small panel that was so well camouflaged into its surroundings that you would’ve mistaken it at a cursory glance. Further inspection however revealed its higher level of technology and Roy instantly patched into it, hacking the systems it was connected to. “Okay, give me a second aaaaaaand.” His tiny arm mounted computer chimed merrily as the sound of the lift mechanisms whirring into life echoed from behind the wall. A second later the false wall parted and revealed a polished metal lift, cleaner than the crockery they all ate off of and Jason cleaned it fastidiously.

They collectively stepped into the lift, moving as one due to the time they had spent together now. There was only one button, and if the schematics Roy was projecting onto the far wall of the lift were anything to go by, there was only one level a hundred metres below the surface. The lift doors shut; the high-speed mechanism fired into life again, dropping them rapidly down to their destination.

The journey was over sooner than they would’ve expected and less than thirty seconds later the doors parted again, opening out onto a prep room, filled with wash basins and sterile field generators on the far side. They strode straight past the basins and walked into the SFG, letting the soft purple glow destroy anything not welcome inside the lab environment beyond. Jason glanced down at his weapons and still felt the slight niggle behind his eyes, confirming that the quantum camo had held up to the generators.

A small green light illuminated and the door the other side of the SFGs opened, allowing them into the facility on the other side of the doors. “Okay, heads on the swivel, we don’t know what’s waiting down here for us and we don’t want to get caught napping.” Jason said, his distorted voice ringing out through the silent chamber they now stood in. “Rose, move right and clear the rooms on that side. Roy, you sweep left. I’ll take the larger room ahead.”

They moved silently but with purpose, prepared to launch into combat at any moment. The first few rooms Roy and Rose came across were empty, although had clearly held something substantial at some point in some kind of containment device. The third rooms on either side however both contained the devices that had clearly inhabited the other rooms. Roy stepped closer to his and opened an observation hatch in the top. He looked in and saw that there was some kind of deformed figure, suspended in what looked like a type of amniotic fluid.

“Okay we’ve got more krypto-clones on site. I just found one in a large black pod.” He reported to his friends.

“Yeah I’ve got one too.” Rose replied, an unease in her voice.

“Tag ‘em, we’ll relay the locations to the league, they aren’t what we came for.” Roy and Rose both pulled a small sheet from one of their pouches and peeled off a small dot from the sheet and placed it on the pod. It instantly shifted colour and changed to black, disappearing against the pod’s exterior. Whilst this was going on, Jason had entered the larger room and was sweeping the corners and checking he wasn’t being tricked into falling for one of Lex’s traps. He knew he hadn’t when he heard whistling, whistling that was too relaxed to be malicious or intimidating. Jason darted behind a stack of pods that looked similar to the ones Roy and Rose had described, he silenced his exterior speaker and opened the com to his teammates. “I think the owner of this wonderous facility is here. Roy send in a spy bolt as I’ve not got eyes on him currently.”

After a few beats, Jason saw the door crack slightly ajar and a red-covered wrist poke through the gap. A subtle ‘poof’ sounded as the bolt left Roy’s wrist launched and imbedded in the far wall. A picture cleared up in their implants and Jason could now see what he was dealing with.

Past the large dividing wall Jason had been approaching when he heard the whistling, Lex was stood cataloguing his stores of Kryptonite. He clearly didn’t trust anyone else with such a task, but it also looked like he was preparing to move it all to another location. Had they lucked into getting here just before Lex moved it all for an attack on big blue? That remained to be seen but all that bothered Jason now was getting his hands on it all. He pulled his guns, checking there was a round in each chamber and moved out of his hiding position and round the wall.

He could now see Lex clearly with his own eyes, he was focused deeply on his task having thought himself untouchable in this lab/bunker he had constructed. “Quite a collection you’ve got here Lexy.” Jason taunted before blowing out both of Lex’s kneecaps, he knew the rounds would cause a lot of damage but in his haste to save his friend, Jason had forgotten to switch to a smaller calibre round. Lex’s knees erupted and his lower legs separated completely from his thighs. Lex screamed out in agony, unaware of how this pain had come to pass. “Oops, sorry about that.” Jason said completely casually, no intention that he meant his apology.

“RED HOOD?!” Lex questioned. “Why the hell are you doing this?”

Jason wandered over to the crates of kryptonite and marvelled in their beauty. There were twenty cases in all, filled with kryptonite of varying sizes and all organised by colour. “Well you see, my good pal Bizarro is in a bit of a bind. He got attacked using some kryptonite and now your poor science is failing him. His genetic structure is falling apart but me and my friends had an idea. You see he was attacked with blue kryptonite, which is one of the rarest colours going.” Jason stopped next to a case full of the neon blue crystals. “And now that I think about it, there are only a handful of people who would know to use blue kryptonite on Biz, probably more like just the one person.” He swung around with his pistol aimed straight at Lex’s bald, blood splattered head.

“Look, you’re a mercenary right? I’ll pay you, more than you’ve ever been paid for one of your petty little jobs. Just take what you want and leave me alone. You’ve ruined enough as it is!” Jason considered his proposal for a second. Whilst the kind of money Lex could give them was enticing, he was almost certain it was Lex who had supplied the kryptonite and knowledge to use it on Biz.

“Red Arrow, your assistance please.” Jason called out as he turned back around and selected cases brimming with green kryptonite, sealing them and hefting them off the counters they rested on.

Roy appeared with Rose and looked down at the mess that was Lex Luthor. “Looking good Lex.” He teased. The usually verbose multi-millionaire merely held up his middle finger to the archer, then collapsed back onto his arms as he grew weak from blood loss.

“Ravager, if you wouldn’t mind?” Jason held one of the cases in her direction and she dutifully took it from him. “See you topside.” Rose nodded and turned for the elevator now understanding what Jason’s plan was. “Show me the schematics for this place again.” Jason asked, as if he hadn’t already committed it to memory. Roy activated the hologram and sure enough the layout he’d hacked appeared before them. Jason hovered his finger over a long tunnel that lead off from the room they were currently in.

“I’m gonna take a wild guess that that tunnel leads straight to Metropolis and is what’s hidden behind that massive blast door.” Jason’s distorted voice echoed through the large chamber. Jason zoomed in on the hologram, focusing on the door. “Based on the scale of this thing compared to my known knowledge of this room, I’m going to say that this door could withstand a relatively low yield nuclear blast?” He gestured vaguely in the direction of the enormous metal door. Lex scowled at Jason intensely, no longer willing or able to answer him. “Well, regardless, we’re far away enough from anything else that it couldn’t hurt to test that theory!” Jason pointed up to a spot on the ceiling, giving a target for Roy. “Give us enough time to get out of here, then let’s leave Lexy to experience the power he’s always wished he had.”

Roy grinned from ear to ear. He’d never had the chance to use his nuclear arrow before his death as the opportunity to use such a device had a very narrow window. Roy set the warhead to time delay, then fired the arrow into the ceiling. “Let’s get a move on, I don’t want to be around when that thing goes off.” Roy joked with Jason, in an attempt to wind Lex up.

“DON’T. LEAVE ME. HERE!” He yelled to them as the jogged towards the doors and the elevator, but they didn’t care. Lex had hurt and killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people with all his schemes over the years, yet somehow, he always managed to squirrel his was out of any serious punishment.

Not this time.

Jason and Roy stepped into the elevator and felt the rush as it hurtled them back to ground level. The stepped out and saw the Arsenal hovering a foot above the dirt, waiting for them. They both hopped aboard and took hold of a handle, then Artemis fed power to the engines and they shot off into the darkening night sky.

Several miles behind them the ground underneath the tiny hut bulged and then collapsed in on itself, a huge crater forming where Lex and his facility had been a minute earlier. Artemis swung the ship around and fired a void missile at the site, setting a proximity detonation so that it would detonate in the centre of the crater. There was a brilliant flash of the blackest black as the void sucked in any residual radiation and debris, then it winked out of existence again. Leaving a clean crater with no risk of any fallout reaching the nearby populations.

“Anyone looking will see the spike from the blast, but my sensors are detecting a completely clean site.” Roy announced to the team and they all shared the same contented look. They had all signed on to this job because they were sick of innocents being killed over and over by super villains that kept on getting back into the world to cause more havoc, they were happy that they’d gotten rid of another whilst saving their friend, and not leaving any potential for collateral damage.

Today had been a good day.


End file.
